Monthly Archives June 2013

What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted? In General Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Deaver, 2013 WL 2420392 (E.D. Mo., June 3, 2013), the hunter remains in state court unless he realigns the parties prior to removal. In that case, GCAC filed a simple one-count petition for breach of a retail installment contract in St. Louis County, and got hit with a counterclaim seeking to certify a consumer class action under the UCC. GCAC promptly tried to get its head out of the bear trap by dismissing its breach of contract claim and removing the case to the Eastern District, using the class action counterclaim as a hook to assert removal jurisdiction under CAFA. While it is well-settled that a plaintiff may not remove a case to federal court based on a counterclaim, GCAC argued that it was only a nominal plaintiff and in reality a de facto defendant, having…